


Hamsters and Shenanigans

by Arctic Banana (ArcticBanana)



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Commander Shepard's Birthday, F/M, Garrus should be banned from taking care of animals, Urz makes a cameo!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 10:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3724879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcticBanana/pseuds/Arctic%20Banana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Commander Shepard's birthday and the crew surprise him with a party and convince him to take a few days off to go visit his mom. Garrus figures looking after his pets while he's away can't be too hard, right? It's not like hamsters are small and easy to lose and fish die easily or anything after all...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Let's Plan A Surprise!

**Author's Note:**

> I noticed what day it was last night and decided to quickly write something up in celebration of the future birth of a fictional character. It's a little bit more disjointed than I was hoping, but hey, I mostly wrote this in a night on two separate laptops no less (I might have tried to unplug my newer laptop and accidentally broke the cord) and had to take a break out of writing for Camp NaNoWriMo to do it, so I'm amazed I even wrote this much let alone a complete story.
> 
> On another note, I actually wrote more for this in a night than I wrote for my novel in the first week or so of the NaNo event...whoops.

It was a mostly calm and uneventful morning for most of the crew. Shepard was off the ship exploring a distress call on an uninhabited planet with Thane and Jacob, leaving the rest of the crew to fend for themselves until they got back.

Kasumi was doing her usual routine of sneaking about the ship while invisible. She observed as Mordin carried a violently struggling box containing who knows what to his lab. She saw Grunt take a bite out of a plant on Miranda's desk and then quietly walk away while she stared at him incredulously. She even snuck into Shepard's room and watched Tali for a while as she made his bed for him and used his private terminal to check in with the fleet and watch cat videos on the extranet. As usual she remained undetected, no one ever knowing she was there except for maybe EDI, and Samara seemed a bit suspicious for a moment too.

Her last stop was to spy on Garrus. Well, spying might not have been the word for it. She was pretty sure his sensitive turian hearing and strong sense of smell allowed him to detect whenever she was in the room, unless he was distracted or with too many people to tell. Sure enough he turned around before the door even had a chance to open.

"Hello, Kasumi," he said in a deadpan manner.

"Well, so much for stealth," she sighed as she flickered into visibility. "Still calibrating?"

"No actually, I was just looking over my schedule for the week and I realized that Shepard's birthday is tomorrow." He turned back around and looked over his omnitool with interest.

"It's his birthday tomorrow? Why didn't he say anything?" she asked.

"I don't know. I guess he never really makes a big deal out of his birthdays," Garrus shrugged. "When I was on the SR-1, he actually lost count of his birthdays and forgot how old he was once. He had to check his Alliance ID before he could even remember."

"What do you plan on doing for him?"

Garrus silently stared at his omnitool display. "Uh...give him a cupcake?" he said noncommittally. When he noticed the look on her face he added, "What? He doesn't seem to care much about his birthday anyway."

"You're his best friend! You should do more than just give him a cupcake!" she replied. "Do you know if the rest of the crew is doing anything?"

"Uh..." Garrus blanked out.

"That's it. I'm calling an emergency meeting. Let's try to plan this out before Shepard gets back." Kasumi spun around and started to walk out of the room. "EDI, tell everyone to meet me in the starboard lounge ASAP." She looked over her shoulder. "That goes for you too, Vakarian."

"Since when did I start taking orders from you?" Garrus grumbled before following her out.

* * *

To Kasumi's relief, everyone had gathered quickly. She was hoping they could get this done before Shepard got back from his investigation. Thane and Jacob would have to be filled in when they got back, she guessed.

"Wait, it's Shepard's birthday?" Zaeed stated.

"I didn't know he had a birthday," Grunt added.

"Everyone has a birthday, Grunt," Miranda pointed out.

"I don't, unless you count the day Tank Mom spit me out..."

"You're calling your tank 'Mom' now?" Jack asked dryly.

Kasumi noticed them starting to get off track very quickly and quickly got their attention back. "Guys, he could return at any minute and we still don't know what to do!" she pointed out.

"Why not just give him a cupcake?" Jack offered.

"Give him a credit chit and tell him to buy his own damn present," Zaeed suggested.

She sighed when she realized this conversation was going nowhere and decided to try another tactic. "You know what? Shepard's been selflessly helping us all from day one, but when have we ever done anything for him?" she asked.

"I made him Pop-Tarts this morning," Tali pointed out.

"I helped him eat those Pop-Tarts this morning," Grunt added.

"No, I mean bigger things than that," Kasumi shook her head. "He went out of his way to help me recover my partner's graybox, but what exactly have I done for him in return?"

"You helped him with the Collectors," Garrus pointed out.

"Besides that!"

"So what are you getting at, Kasumi?" Zaeed asked.

"What do you mean, what am I getting at? Who took time out of his busy schedule to help you settle a petty grudge?"

"He let Vido get away!" Zaeed replied. After a brief pause he seemed to get her point and added, "But I guess Shepard did still try to help when he didn't really have to..."

"And Miranda, who was it that helped you save your sister?" Kasumi asked.

"Shepard," Miranda replied. "And he was quite happy to do it too."

"And Legion, anyone else would have deactivated you on sight, but who was it that decided to take a chance on you and befriend you?"

"Shepard Commander," Legion replied.

"And Garrus?" The turian's mandibles flicked at the mention of his name. "Who saved your life when you were shot in the face with a rocket?"

"Dr. Chakwas," Garrus replied.

"Okay, that's true, but he did hold your hand and refuse to let go until we got you to the medical bay and she made us leave," Kasumi shrugged. "My point is, he's done so much for us and yet we haven't really done anything to show our appreciation for him in return. So I think we should do something really nice for his birthday. Something that isn't just giving him a cupcake and a credit chit."

Tali looked contemplative for a while. As Shepard's girlfriend, Kasumi had hoped she at least had a better plan than everyone else. Like Garrus she'd been already aware that tomorrow was his birthday.

"The commander is returning to the Normandy," EDI warned.

Kasumi looked a little worried and wished Tali would speak up. "I think I have a plan," Tali finally said.

"Let's hear it," Kasumi replied.

"First, do you think you can keep Shepard busy for a while?" Tali asked. "We don't want him walking in and ruining the surprise."

"Depends on what you had in mind..."

* * *

This wasn't how Shepard had planned to spend his birthday, but Zaeed and Kasumi had insisted he go out with them. He didn't want to say anything to them about it, but the celebration was a little lackluster. There was nothing really special about the Dark Star Lounge other than the bartender knew him as the guy who drank ryncol and didn't vomit his liquefied organs onto the floor afterwards, so there was really nothing here for him to do that he couldn't do any other day of the year. He wished at least Garrus and Tali could be here, but Tali had been nowhere to be found and Garrus didn't even seem to realize it was even his birthday at all when he spoke to him, despite the numerous hints he'd dropped during their conversation. Stupid dense turian...

He supposed it was his own fault. He was always so busy that he forgot his own birthday often. That's how it had always been. Even when he was a kid, his mother had been the only one to really keep track of it, and even his father perpetually thought he was three years younger than he really was. He'd only really remembered it this time around because he had EDI to keep track of the days for him now and she always reminded him whenever his or someone else's birthday was approaching. Still, it would have been nice to have one birthday spent with friends.

Kasumi seemed to have disappeared shortly after they arrived at the lounge. He looked around for her, unsure if she was invisible or if she'd just gotten lost in the crowd somewhere. The place wasn't that big and she stood out a lot more than she thought, so he assumed she must have been invisible. Zaeed was arguing with a turian in the corner who apparently owed him money. It certainly was fun, spending your birthday sitting by yourself at the bar while your companions went off and did something else.

"Hey, you're the ryncol guy. You don't look too happy today," the turian bartender said. He stood on the other side of the bar washing a glass and occasionally eying a salarian sitting by himself who was acting a little shady.

"It's my birthday, but only two people remembered and they brought me here and then wandered off," Shepard sighed in response.

"Uh oh. That sucks," the bartender replied. "I had to work through my birthday already. No one remembered but my boss, and he gave me a levo cupcake I couldn't even eat." Their conversation was cut short when an asari and a turian woman sat down on the other side of Shepard at the counter. "Just one moment please," he said to Shepard. "Can I get you ladies anything?"

While they ordered their drinks, Shepard watched a fist fight break out between Zaeed and the turian, which was quickly broken up by a krogan bouncer before it escalated into something worse. Miraculously neither of them got thrown out, but they did both split up, likely after being threatened with that option.

"Here," the bartender returned. He placed a glass of something glowing blue in front of him which Shepard recognized as an expensive asari liquor. It was known for being fairly strong, but not 'corrode your esophagus like paint thinner' strong like ryncol was. "It's on the house. Happy birthday."

"Thanks," Shepard replied.

"It's your birthday?" the female turian beside him said. "And you're spending it here alone?"

Shepard shrugged. "I'm used to it by now," he replied. "I'm actually here with someone, but they seem to have vanished." Quite literally, in Kasumi's case. Of course no sooner did he say that then Zaeed sat down on the other side of him and started mumbling to himself. "Oh, you're back now? Thought you forgot about me."

"Goddamn turian still owes me credits..." Zaeed mumbled. He noticed the asari sitting two seats over and added, "Oh, hello!"

"Is this your father?" the asari asked Shepard after deducing that they knew each other.

Shepard had to stifle a laugh. Clearly that wasn't the response Zaeed was hoping for and he seemed a little less amused. "Oh yeah, totally," he replied. The sarcasm dripping in his words seemed to go over her head.

Zaeed suddenly smiled at Shepard. Shepard swore everytime he did that an entire litter of puppies died somewhere. "You're my favorite son. Have I ever told you that, favorite son?" Shepard hadn't a chance to get away before Zaeed grabbed him into a chokehold masquerading as an affectionate hug. He started roughly patting Shepard's head while the commander attempted in vain to escape his grasp. "Stop fighting and give Daddy a hug..."

Shepard stood up from the bar stool and tried to twist his body around to get away from him, but Zaeed held on pretty firmly. "Mom asked me to take him out for one last ooh rah before we have him euthanized..." he grumbled in defeat. The look of horror on the asari and turian woman's faces were almost worth Zaeed's attempts to embarrass him.

That was when Kasumi popped right out of nowhere beside them both. She stared silently at Zaeed holding Shepard in a death grip and glanced at the two spectators. "Do I really want to know?" she asked them.

"I'm not entirely sure what's happening either and we've been sitting here this entire time," the asari replied.

When she turned her attention back to them, Shepard had finally managed to yank himself out of Zaeed's grasp. "Zaeed, can I speak with you a moment?" she asked. She eyed Shepard and added, "In private?"

Zaeed seemed to catch on fairly quickly. "Right. I'll be back in a moment, Shepard," he replied. He patted Shepard on the shoulder on the way past. Once they were safely away out of earshot, he turned to Kasumi and asked, "So what's the plan?"

"I just got off the line with Tali. They're almost done. We just have to stall him for another thirty minutes or so," she explained.

Zaeed glanced over his shoulder. Shepard looked bored and was looking around the room as though trying to find something more interesting to do. "You think we can hold him here for that long?"

"Well we have to," she replied. "What else is there to do? We've already exhausted the Presidium Park and took him to every bar and lounge on this end of the Citadel!"

"We could take him to a strip club," Zaeed suggested.

Kasumi stared at him blankly and shook her head. "Um...I don't think Tali would appreciate that, Zaeed."

"Why, is she prudish?" he asked.

Clearly Zaeed wasn't as familiar with Tali's extranet searches as Kasumi was. "Let's just try to keep him here for as long as we can, shall we?" she suggested. "Come on. I think he's getting annoyed with us for walking away again."

Shepard had chugged the rest of his drink by the time they got back and had ordered another. They seriously hoped he wasn't piss drunk by the time they got him back to the Normandy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to post this all as one part, but I'm still in the process of editing it, so I figured I'd just split it up and post it in chapters as I complete editing in each section. Admittedly I'm rushing it a little so I can at least get it posted while it's still April 11th on my corner of the world, so if you see any mistakes or anything that doesn't flow very well or whatever, just let me know and I'll see if I have time to fix it.
> 
> Also I asked my sister for a title and she told me there really was no other way to describe what I wrote than "Hamsters and Shenanigans".


	2. Surprise!

Thankfully his implants had made him a lot better at holding his liquor than he was two years ago. Several drinks later and he only felt a little bit tipsy. Kasumi had to secretly inform the bartender not to give him anything stronger to prevent another repeat of the ryncol incident before they could get him back on the ship.

"Commander, you're needed in the mess hall," Joker informed him the second he set foot back on the Normandy.

Shepard regarded him curiously. What could his crew possibly need him for? Couldn't he leave them to their own devices for five minutes before something happened? "Was there a food fight?" he asked.

"No," Joker replied.

"Did Jack stab someone with a fork?"

"Nope," he replied again.

"What's wrong then?"

"Go down and see," he said cryptically. Shepard sighed and continued his march to the elevator. He hoped whatever it was wouldn't make his head hurt too hard.

Kasumi and Zaeed both hitched a ride with him. The elevator felt like it was taking longer than it normally did as he waited to arrive at the mess hall. He wondered if it was the anticipation making it feel that way or if it genuinely did take that long. All he was missing was elevator music and his crew members discussing something completely random behind him while they waited to arrive. The door opened and the three of them stepped out. Kasumi made sense since she stayed on this level, but Shepard wondered why Zaeed was getting off with them instead of heading to his room below.

"Okay, I'm here, what do you guys need..."

Shepard paused as he rounded the corner from the elevator. He almost felt like crying when he saw the mess hall decorated for a party and a sheet cake on the table in front of him. It didn't look professional in the least, rather it looked like they'd made and decorated it themselves, his name was spelled wrong, and there was a large piece already missing from the corner, but it was still a lot more than he ever got on any of his previous birthdays.

"Surprise!" Kasumi said. She nudged his shoulder playfully and shoved him along to join the rest of the crew.

"Okay guys, what's this about?" he asked, trying to cover the fact that he was still about to cry. Tali seemed to catch on and quickly hugged him to buy him a chance to recover.

"Sorry your name's misspelled," she whispered in his ear. "Grunt really wanted to help and we didn't have the heart to tell him he spelled it wrong."

"That's alright. It's close enough," he said into her shoulder.

She pulled away from him slightly and smiled behind her visor. "So, we made you your favorite!"

"French vanilla?"

"We made you your other favorite!" she corrected. "Chocolate!" She pulled him over to the table so he could get a closer look at it.

"I helped decorate it!" Grunt said proudly. He pointed to a blotch of icing on the cake. "This is you kicking the Collectors' butts, and over here..." he pointed to another indecipherable blob of icing, "...is Tuchanka, and this..." he pointed to the large chunk of missing cake, "is the part that we already ate!"

"Garrus, did you eat some of that cake?" Tali asked with concern. "You realize it's not dextro, right?"

"I do now," he replied miserably. He vomited inside his mouth, where it proceeded to slowly filter out through his teeth in a thick, chocolatey mass of cake and icing.

"I wouldn't eat that part of the cake if I were you," Zaeed warned, pointing out the part that Garrus had just thrown up on. Shepard nodded, apparently in agreement.

"So how old do you guys think I'm turning exactly?" Shepard asked, pointing out the 70-odd candles they had sticking out all over the cake.

"We found several boxes of them in the closet and just decided to use them all," Miranda replied. "Apparently some of us thought the gift of fire was too irresistible to pass up."

"Hey, this is the only chance I get to start a fire on the Normandy without getting yelled at. I'm gonna enjoy it while I can!" Jack said excitedly.

"And now as per Tuchanka tradition, you get one punch in the quad from every one of your friends!" Grunt said cheerfully. Shepard really didn't seem to like that idea if the fact that he jumped back away from the krogan and pulled Jacob in front of him as a human shield was any indication.

"Uh, Grunt, I don't think we should do that," Jacob said as the rest of the crew quickly stood in the way to stop him.

"Why not? It's for good luck," he pointed out.

"Yeah, there's this thing about humans, Grunt. We don't have a protective shell or any kind of plating or anything over our junk like you do," Jacob pointed out. "So why don't we give him the other part of his surprise instead?"

"Other part?" Shepard stated. "There's another part?" He couldn't imagine what would be more surprising than this. He thought he was happy enough just knowing his crew remembered.

Joker must have been listening in because he made the announcement over the intercom. "Three days of shore leave, all to yourself!"

"Yeah, so you can finally get away from our psychotic asses!" Jack added.

"Uh..." Shepard wasn't so sure what he thought about that idea. Three days away from his crew while they were free to run around doing Lord knows what seemed a little unnerving to him. He always felt iffy about leaving them alone while he was so much as exploring salvage on an uncharted planet for an hour or two. "I appreciate the offer guys, but I'm not so sure that's a good idea."

"Why not? It's not like we're going to crash the Normandy into a red dwarf while you're away or anything." Jack noticed Miranda looking at her suspiciously. "Hey, I only did that once, and I didn't like that ship much anyway!"

"I appreciate what you're all trying to do, but I can't leave, even for three days," Shepard said. "I've got duties to fill, pets to take care of..."

"That shouldn't be a problem. Doesn't someone always do those things for you when you're off the ship anyway?" Kasumi asked.

"Yeah, but for three days? That might not seem like long to you guys, but my fish could be dead in that time."

"I'll look after the fish," Garrus replied. "And I already know how to take care of the hamster."

"There, see? Problem solved," Kasumi added. "We'll take care of everything, don't worry."

Shepard still seemed a little unsure. "I don't know guys...the fish are pretty finicky..."

"Oh, don't worry about the damn fish. How hard can taking care of them be?" Garrus shrugged noncommittally.

"Well I'm glad you asked that, Garr..."

* * *

Garrus barely had a chance to step outside the elevator and make his way to the front of the fish tank before Shepard started speaking. "You just hit this button here to feed them like so..." He pushed a button on the front of the aquarium and watched as the exact amount of fish flakes needed were dropped into the water. "And here, you just make sure there's actually food still in there to feed them." He pulled open a compartment that had several smaller compartments full of different types of food. "If any of them start to get low, I've got more over by my desk. Just make sure you put the right kind of food in the right section or there's going to be a fish in there that doesn't get fed. Most of them will eat generic flakes, but some of them have specific tastes."

"That hard, huh?" Garrus asked sarcastically.

"I wasn't finished," he pointed out. "They have very fast metabolisms, so you have to feed them three times a day. If you miss even a single feeding, they all starve to death. Don't tap on the glass or you'll kill them. Make sure you turn the light off at night because too much light will kill them. Don't turn the speakers up too loud because the vibration can kill them. Don't stick your hands in the tank or..."

"It will kill them?" Garrus guessed.

"No, Rudy bites," he replied, pointing towards a vicious looking eel swimming amongst the plants. "And sometimes Timmy does too."

"Okay. So which one's Timmy?"

"That one," Shepard pointed out a tiny little fish swimming in a school of equally identical fish. "Um...or maybe that one's Lou and that one over there is Timmy...I can never tell them apart, so I usually just call them all by the same name."

As Garrus watched the seemingly delicate and fragile fish swimming about, he began to wonder what the appeal of such an animal was. You couldn't play with a fish, it couldn't defend your home or be trained to serve in the military, and evidently just breathing at it the wrong way could kill it.

"You still think you're up for this, Garrus?" Shepard asked curiously, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Of course I can handle this. What kind of turian do you take me for?" Garrus replied with a shrug.

"Hmm..." Shepard watched him suspiciously. "One other thing...I have no idea how he's been doing it, but Sniffles has become quite an escape artist lately." He walked over to the hamster tank and tapped on a large, heavy rock placed on top of the hamster's enclosure. "Make sure you keep this rock here or he'll get out. Last thing this place needs is a hamster crawling through the air ducts."

"Sniffles will not get out," Garrus promised.

Shepard watched him with suspicion and then sighed. "Alright. Since you guys seem to really want me to go, I guess I'll get out for three days," he said defeatedly. "But I get to pick the destination. I want to go see my mom. She always nags me about not visiting her anyway."

"I will inform the rest of the crew of your decision," EDI replied.

Shepard continued to look at Garrus skeptically. "But if I come back and find a single scale on those fish out of place..."

"I know. I promise they'll be fine," Garrus said firmly.

He was still a little suspicious. Even he struggled to remember to feed the fish sometimes and Garrus had never cared for another animal in his life. "Alright. Let's go get some cake and then you can help me pack."

"I'll pass on the cake, thank you..." Garrus replied.

* * *

A few hours and some more beers later, Shepard was all packed and ready to go and was recovering from the cake and alcohol binge in his room with his girlfriend. Tali had her head on Shepard's chest and was listening to his heartbeat while he watched the stars and distant planets pass by through the skylight above his bed and contentedly stroked her arm.

"You should come with me," he blurted out, interrupting the peaceful silence.

Tali pulled away and sat up in shock. She looked around uneasily as she contemplated his offer. "I don't think that would be such a good idea..." she shook her head.

"Oh? Why not?" Shepard pulled himself up until he was leaning against the wall and pulled her back into the spot next to him.

"What would your mother say when she meets me and I'm not..."

"Human?" he interrupted, completing her sentence.

"Yeah," she said softly.

"To be honest, I don't know how she'd react," he replied truthfully. "I know she has no problem with aliens. She's worked with turians and salarians in the past."

"Yes, but turians and salarians are regarded differently than my people are, and it's different when you're dating an alien as opposed to being just friends," she pointed out.

"I know my mom. I don't think it will be a problem." He pulled her into an embrace and smiled. "If you feel uncomfortable, we can always leave at any time and go somewhere else."

"Well..."

"It's better than sticking around here with the crew for three days."

She was silent for a good, long while, likely contemplating what he was asking of her and letting it sink in. "Okay," she replied. "I'll come with you."

Shepard smiled and she relaxed against him once more. "That's my girl."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shepard's crew eating his birthday cake before he even got to see it was based on a true story. My friends secretly made me a cake, but then they thought I wasn't going to show up because I was running extremely late, and they'd already started eating it by the time I got there...


	3. Fish and Space Hamsters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I've got half of it posted at least. Also I'm amused by the fact that my spell check tries to correct "quarian" to "antiquarian". My spell check is mad racist, yo.

With Shepard gone, Garrus was unofficially in charge until he got back. He very well couldn't stay isolated with the Thanix cannon for three days with that responsibility looming over his head, so he made sure to make rounds to make sure no one was killing each other. He was sure EDI would let him know if something was serious, but people seemed to like it when Shepard took time out of his day to check in on them. Might as well take over duties for him.

EDI and Legion were discussing the best way to take over the Turian Empire when he checked on them. He was fairly certain they were joking since the fact that he was standing right there didn't change or halt their conversation at all. He wondered if this was what Shepard had to go through all the time. Kasumi was missing and he guessed she was watching Jacob from a closet somewhere or something while Jack was having lunch with Grunt in his room. Garrus was a little surprised to see her out of her hiding place and wondered when she and Grunt became friends. This probably wouldn't have been much of a shock to Shepard, who always seemed to know what was going on. Maybe he was spending too much time calibrating after all...

"Oh hey, so you _can_ leave that room!" Ken said when Garrus stopped to check on them. "All this time I thought there was a curse on you that prevented you from leaving."

"He leaves all the time, Ken," Gabby pointed out. "Haven't you ever seen him in the mess hall?"

"Well apparently not," he shrugged.

Garrus had checked on just about everybody. That just left Mordin. He hadn't been in his lab when he stopped to see if he needed anything. Garrus instead found him going through a shipment of crates out in the cargo dock. He briefly took notice to Garrus before losing interest in favor of his previous task.

Mordin opened the latch on a crate and checked the contents to make sure they were all there. "Wow, Mordin...is Grunt having trouble sleeping or something?" Garrus asked.

"No," Mordin replied. "Necessity of inquiry?"

"Because you've got enough sedatives in there to knock out a krogan."

Mordin handled a vial of glowing purple liquid and then entered something into his omnitool. "Necessary to keep Maynard from escaping until Shepard's return. Should keep him docile for three days."

"And this Maynard is a pet?" Garrus asked.

Mordin silently debated for a moment. It was rare that he actually stopped to think before responding to a question and Garrus wondered if he should be worried about that sudden break in character or not. "Yes. Let's go with that suggestion," he nodded.

Garrus looked from the cargo crate to a shoebox sized crate that was belted to a nearby table that he assumed contained Maynard. "You sure that isn't a bit much?"

"Hmm...more concerned might not be enough. Will have to hope for the best." Mordin's reassuring smile didn't feel all that reassuring to Garrus when a pair of spider-like legs slowly emerged like fingers from an air hole in the side of the tinier crate and something from within started hissing.

"I'm uh...gonna go feed Shepard's fish..." Garrus said before quickly hightailing it out of there.

* * *

Tali did her best to calm her nerves and hoped she didn't start babbling like an idiot again. She'd never actually thought about meeting Shepard's parents. Well, parent. He never once mentioned his father.

Vids and secondhand stories always strove to inform her that meeting your partner's mother was like Hell, second only to meeting their father if you happened to be dating his daughter. They were always shown to be judgmental and shrewish. She was particularly reminded of that scene from Fleet and Flotilla where the turian's disapproving family found out he was secretly seeing a quarian. It was the same with her people too, though that was mostly because they were expected to keep the population up and seeing an incompatible species wasn't exactly helping keep their numbers stable. She wondered if humans had a similar taboo against it?

"Remember to breathe, Tali," Shepard interrupted her thoughts. She realized that she was holding her breath and took a huge gulp of air, which made him smile slightly in amusement.

"Jonathan!" Shepard barely had a chance to turn around before his mother was smothering him with hugs and kisses. If Tali's research was correct, this was the part where she was supposed to insult his haircut before telling him he didn't eat enough and demanding she fed him.

Shepard ended up dropping his overnight bag on the floor. It made a loud thud as the pistol hidden in the very bottom collided with the hard surface. Thankfully it was disarmed and unloaded as a precaution for this very scenario.

"Mom!" Shepard replied.

"Why do you only ever show up on holidays and anniversaries? Why can't you just drop what you're doing and come visit me any other day of the year?" she asked. She was teasing of course. She was in the Alliance herself and knew exactly why he couldn't just come see her whenever he wanted.

Shepard finally managed to escape from his mother's grasp. "Mom, there's someone I'd like you to meet." He motioned for Tali to come closer. She inched over with jerky movements that she was totally sure didn't at all make her look like a robot. "This is Tali'Zorah."

"This is the girl you've been seeing?" Hannah asked.

Tali looked a little surprised. He must not have told her that he mentioned her to his mother. He did mention that he was seeing a girl in his emails, but he never said she was a quarian. Hannah wondered if that omission of detail was intentional.

Tali waited for the disparaging comments to come, some kind of negative stereotype about quarians or an admonishment for settling with an alien instead of a nice human girl, but she was surprised once more when instead of hurtful comments or passive-aggressive insults, Hannah smiled.

"It's nice to meet you, Tali," she said.

Tali quickly analyzed her tone, looking for any inflection of sarcasm or masked displeasure, but found none. She looked at Shepard, who nodded for her to say something back. "It's nice to meet you too, Mrs. Shepard," Tali replied. "But please excuse me. I think I'm going to throw up." Five seconds later, she was making retching noises over a nearby garbage can.

"She isn't sick, is she?" Hannah asked with concern.

"I'm sure she'll be fine," Shepard replied with an awkward smile.

* * *

Shepard's space hamster was busy tearing away at his cardboard tube and making a fort out of it in one corner of his terrarium. He poked his head out of the growing heap when he heard Garrus enter the room and squeaked at him before he disappeared once more. Garrus peered in at the hamster and realized that the glass was really smudged and cloudy looking.

"Maybe I should wash the glass..." he thought out loud.

He doubted Shepard had much time to do it himself these days. It certainly looked like the upkeep in there was the bare minimal. The fish tank at least had a self-cleaning feature and stayed clear and pure even if you regularly threw garbage inside of it, but the hamster required manual labor to keep his surroundings clean.

He quickly found a small box to put Sniffles in while he cleaned out his enclosure. Sniffles madly ran in circles within its confines, trying to escape and looking sad that he couldn't hide in his cardboard fortress anymore. Garrus glanced over at him every once in a while to make sure he was okay while he tried to scrub the caked on residue off the sides of the glass. One area had it on so thick that he almost decided to scrape it off with a razor blade. Perhaps Shepard should hire someone just to come in here and maintain the hamster every once in a while.

Finally his labor was complete and the terrarium was clean and had fresh bedding. Garrus threw out the shredded cardboard and replaced it with another tube. He reached into the box to retrieve Sniffles and realized with horror that the hamster was gone and there was a hamster-sized hole gnawed through the side where a hole hadn't been gnawed before.

"Sniffles?" Garrus called out with worry. What would Shepard say when he came back and found his hamster missing? "Sniffles!" he called out again. He noticed a trail of cardboard on the floor and started to follow it, hoping for a clue. "Sniffles, no!" he shouted in a panic when he saw that the trail led him to the air vent. He suddenly heard a familiar squeak behind him. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Sniffles poking his head out from under one of Shepard's pillows. Sniffles squeaked again before scurrying out into the open and getting immediately snatched up. "Oh thank the spirits. You scared me, rodent!" he sighed with relief. He placed him back inside his terrarium and dropped the replacement cardboard inside. Sniffles immediately waddled over to it and started gnawing on it.

His task complete, Garrus returned the terrarium to the shelf. He turned to leave when he caught sight of the fish tank. "Oh no...I knew I forgot something..." he groaned when he saw every single one of the fish floating belly up. Timmy/Lou looked like his corpse was staring at Garrus and judging his every move. What was he going to do now? He'd promised Shepard he could handle this and now he ended up killing them all! "I know!" Garrus said suddenly as an idea occurred to him. He quickly hopped up from his seat and ran to the elevator.

* * *

"Then my dad shot her. It was weird," Joker said to EDI just as Garrus burst into the cockpit.

"Joker!"

He jumped after being startled and very nearly broke something from the sudden movement. "Don't do that!" he screamed at Garrus.

"Joker, quick! Plot a course for the Citadel!" Garrus ordered with disinterest in his potential injuries.

"Why?" Joker asked.

"I'll explain later! It's important! Go!"

"Okay! We're going! Hold on!" Joker quickly plotted their course for the Citadel and took off. "Are you going to hover over my chair like that until we get there?"

"Yes..." Garrus replied.

* * *

As she always was when she accompanied Shepard anywhere, Tali was surprised that no one commented on the quarian present. Oh sure, she got a few looks here and there and once she heard someone whispering about her, but they didn't say anything to her face. Maybe it was the company she kept. When she was alone on Pilgrimage before she met Shepard, she heard everything from snide remarks to a death threat from a turian for standing too close to him, but that all seemed to stop when she decided to tag along. She noticed the same thing happen with Legion recently. Odd how that worked.

"You can eat turian food, right dear? I'm afraid we don't have any quarian options," Hannah asked when she noticed a nearby turian restaurant.

"Oh, it's fine, Mrs. Shepard. I can just eat my nutrient paste," she replied.

"Not while I'm cooking," she shook her head.

Tali glanced at Shepard and guessed his mother would be really insistent on cooking for her. "Um. Okay then. I can eat turian food, but it has to be triple sterilized first."

"Good. I'm glad that's settled then."

When his mother was out of earshot, Tali whispered to Shepard, "Your mom really likes to cook, doesn't she?"

"Of course. Where do you think I get it from?" he asked.

She cocked her head to indicate her incredulous stare. "You like to cook?"

"Well yeah. Who do you think made everyone dinner that day Gardner was sick?"

"I thought Garrus did that," she pointed out.

"Garrus?" Shepard laughed. "Garrus can burn water. He mostly just stood around and got in the way."

"I hope you're not talking about me back there," Hannah interrupted them.

"We're not, Mom!" he shouted back. To Tali he added, "Speaking of Garrus, I wonder how he's handling things on his own?"

* * *

"I've never actually seen a raloi in person before, but I saw a picture of one on an extranet news site. They wear exosuits like quarians and volus, so it kind of looked like a robot chicken," Joker said while he and EDI continued their conversation. He noticed Garrus approaching the cockpit after returning to the ship. "So what did you need to do? Meet with someone important? Late for a date?" Joker asked.

Garrus responded by holding up two large plastic bags full of water and fish. "I needed to get new fish for Shepard's tank."

Joker stared at the bag. "Fish? You nearly made me break something and rushed me all the way over here...for fish?"

"Yep. Glad you're so understanding. I should probably put these guys in the tank now. They told me they weren't supposed to stay in the bag for longer than an hour." He turned around and started his trek back to the elevator and from there, to Shepard's room. Joker just watched him go in stunned silence.

"He just..."

"Let it go, Jeff," EDI replied.

"Not even a thank you?"

"Let it go, Jeff," she repeated.

* * *

Garrus quickly cleaned out the dead fish and greenish water and replaced them with the ones he'd just bought. He made sure to hit the button and feed them before he repeated the mistake he'd made last time. "If anyone asks, your names are Timmy and Lou," he said to two identical looking fish. "Now, I think that's everything I have to do, right?" He turned around and saw a rock sitting next to Shepard's personal terminal. He picked it up and examined it a moment. That was an odd cabin decoration, one that he didn't remember seeing before. Since when did Shepard collect rocks? "Where did this rock come fr-"

He cut himself off, spinning around to look at the terrarium. There were the food pellets. There was the little hut. There was the fort made of wood chips and shredded cardboard. But where was the hamster?

He brought the terrarium down from the shelf and poked through the mound, hoping that Sniffles was just asleep in there. There was nothing to be found. "Oh great...first the fish, now Sniffles. Shepard's going to kill me for sure!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be fair to Garrus, who hasn't murdered hundreds of fishy lives by now?


	4. Sniffles' Grand Adventure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: Somehow I chopped part of the end off. Fixed that now.

Sniffles didn't know where to go once he started his adventure, so he did what any friendly little spaceborn rodent would do and just followed the sound of voices echoing through the ventilation shaft. He followed them to the crew's personal quarters where two crew members had retired to after completing their shifts.

"So then when I finally regained consciousness, there was grape jelly everywhere, a turian was on fire in my bathroom, and they somehow got a krogan wearing my mother's clothes," a voice was overheard saying.

"Can you ever throw a party that doesn't result in disaster and mass felonies?" another voice asked. "I'm beginning to wonder if I should bother attending the next one or just watch it when it comes on the news."

Kenneth was about to answer when he heard a light squeak. A moment later, a tiny rodent fell out of the vent duct and landed on Gabby's head. She froze up as a look of sudden panic formed on her face. "Ken...what's in my hair?" Gabby asked warily.

He looked closer and saw that it was a tiny rodent, smiling at him. "Oh! It's a hamster!" he said fondly. Gabby visibly relaxed now that she knew it wasn't something like a rabid space bat or whatever. "I used to have one of those, until I forgot where I put him and accidentally sat on him! I think I still have some of his stuff, actually." He untangled the hamster from Gabby's hair and handed him to her. "Hang on, let me check..."

"Aren't you wondering where he came from? Space hamsters usually don't live free range on ships," Gabby pointed out while he dug through a footlocker of his personal items. Sniffles started turning in her hands, likely curiously trying to see what everything was around him.

"Maybe someone brought him on board as a pet and lost him. Aha! Here it is!" Ken pulled out a hollow plastic ball with air holes in the sides and twisted it open. "You just put the hamster in here, and..." He snapped it shut again and set the hamster on the floor. Sniffles started excitedly running around in his new ball. Everything in view was tinted light red from the color of the plastic and it was like viewing the world from a whole new perspective.

"What's the point of that?" Gabby asked. Sniffles crashed against her foot and turned around before doing the same to a table leg.

"It gives him exercise while keeping him relatively safe from harm and making him visible so you don't lose him," he replied. Sniffles moved away from the friendly strangers to go exploring in the new ball. He rolled right up to the door and surprised Ken and Gabby when it actually opened for him. Either the hamster was best friends with EDI or the motion sensors were getting really sensitive these days.

"Shouldn't we go catch him?" Gabby asked with reasonable concern.

"No. He's in God's hands now," Ken replied before returning to his previous story.

* * *

Shepard had trouble sleeping that night. It was weird. He'd kill for a chance to sleep on the Normandy since he usually got about three hours of sleep and then had to get up again, but now that he actually had the chance for an uninterrupted night of sleep, he was struck with a bout of insomnia. He kind of missed his skylight. And that low whirring sound his private terminal tended to make. And the bubbling sound of the aquarium. He wondered how his hamster was doing without him. Did Sniffles notice he was gone or was he too busy hiding to realize?

Tali rolled over in her sleep and draped her arm across him. "Are you still up?" she asked sleepily.

"Think I should call Garrus and see how everything's going?" he asked.

"Shepard, we're going home soon. I'm sure if anything was wrong he would have called you," she replied. "Now get some sleep. You don't want to spend our last day with your mom sleeping in."

"Hmm...I guess you're right."

He looked out the window as though hoping to see a brightly burning gas giant some distance away, but only saw the dull and lifeless looking building next door. Why put a window there if you were going to obstruct the view with something ugly anyway? Well, he guessed he had starwatching to look forward to when he got back on the Normandy. For now, he should just be grateful for the chance of eight to ten hours of uninterrupted sleep.

* * *

Garrus was making quite a few people suspicious by his poking around. "Nothing! Nothing at all!" he blurted out when Miranda called his name.

"Aren't you supposed to wait until I start asking you questions to start denying you did anything?" she asked in confusion.

"Oh...um...ignore that. I didn't say anything," he quickly backpedaled. "So what did you want?"

"I just wanted to ask you...what are you doing?" she interrupted herself as she watched him crawling around on the floor under a table.

"Looking for clues. I think I may have found one." Garrus picked something up from the floor. He held it close to his face and smelled it. "Cardboard..."

"Did you really need to smell it to tell it was cardboard?" Jacob asked.

Garrus climbed out from under the table and stood up. "Yes. It could have been a wood chip," he replied.

"Wood chip?" Sudden realization hit both Jacob and Miranda like a truck full of krogan. "Oh no, Garrus...did you lose Shepard's hamster?"

"If I can't find him again, do you think he'd notice if I replaced him like I did with the fish?" Garrus wondered out loud.

Jacob groaned. "Garrus, you killed the fish too?! You had like one job!"

"Hey, I replaced them! I just hope he doesn't notice that these fish are smaller, younger, and more vibrant than their predecessors..." Garrus added.

Miranda sighed. "We'll help you look for the hamster. We just need to find him before Shepard does."

Garrus hoped they had time. Last time Shepard lost Sniffles, he was gone for a week. He later turned up in the medical bay eating cotton balls. "Alright everyone," Jacob addressed everyone else in the room. "Shepard's hamster is missing! Start searching!"

"Wow, for once something's missing and it's not my fault," Kasumi pointed out. "This feels so weird. I'm not used to this." Everyone turned their heads to the door when Mordin entered and glanced around the room as though he were looking for something. "Hey Mordin, care to help us look for Shepard's hamster?"

"Already looking for something," Mordin replied, "but will keep an eye out for hamster during search." They were about to question what he was looking for when he quickly added, "Any of you experience any strange burning sensations? Itching? Swelling? Unexplained pain in groin or stomach area?" He held up his omnitool and started scanning the room for something.

"Uh...no?" Garrus shook his head. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason. None at all." Mordin turned back out of the room and walked back the way he came. A few feet down the hall, he stopped and called out, "Maynard!"

Miranda was standing on a table within seconds and everyone looked around for any sign of something that should not be. "Well this should make our search more interesting," Jacob sighed.

* * *

Gardner tasted his stew and looked at it thoughtfully. It was perfectly okay and safe to serve to the crew, but it seemed to be missing something. He turned around and was digging through the seasonings when he heard a loud and sudden _plop._ Sauce from the stew splattered the counter and floor around the pot. He spun around, assuming someone had thrown something into the pot (it wouldn't be the first time someone tossed a rubber ball or something his way while he was cooking) and was prepared to yell at the first person he saw. Instead he was surprised to see a pinkish, plastic ball with a hamster inside it sitting in the stew, scurrying about in an attempt to escape as it slowly sank. The hamster had evidently rolled off a nearby shelf and landed inside. He quickly rescued it and recognized it as the one that Commander Shepard owned. Normally when he saw the hamster, he was hitching rides inside of Shepard's pockets around the Normandy and poking his head out as they passed people. Sniffles, Shepard might have called him.

“I'm pretty sure what my stew was missing wasn't hamster,” he sighed as he cleaned off the plastic ball. He noticed that something else had fallen in along with the hamster and retrieved the spilled container of seasoning. “Hmm...” The hamster watched from the counter as he stirred in the spilled contents and tasted it to make sure it wasn't ruined. “Huh...that actually tastes better! You're a culinary genius, Sniffles!” He looked around to make sure no one was looking and whispered, “Oh, and you might want to keep the fact that you were swimming in the crew's lunch to yourself...” Sniffles squeaked a response and rolled off the edge of the counter before carrying on his way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editing just got harder because my grandmother just came home and put the TV on...


	5. The Hunt Continues

The crew had spent the better part of the day combing every piece of the ship for Sniffles. So far, none of them had any luck finding him. They did find a credit chit in the couch and some suspicious looking hairs in Gardner's stew in their search, but other than that, their search turned up nothing.

"Huh. I guess I let it get a little messy down here," Jack said as she and Grunt searched her personally appropriated living space down in the cargo hold for the missing hamster. She gathered up a stack of clothes that she never even wore once and threw them all into a corner.

"I didn't know you had enough stuff to make a mess down here," Grunt replied as he went through a stack of old poetry books.

"Not all of it's mine. I mostly take it from Miranda's office to see if she notices it missing." They both grew silent when they heard a growling sound from underneath a pile of blankets. "That didn't sound like any hamster I've ever known..." she said cautiously as she reached for a sidearm from under her makeshift bed.

Grunt tensed up. "Is Maynard still missing?" he asked as they both slowly approached the blanket. Jack carefully reached towards the blanket and yanked it off. Well it definitely wasn't a hamster, but at least it wasn't Mordin's "pet" either. "Urz! How long have you been down here? Clan Urdnot's been looking for you for months, boy!" Urz cocked his head and panted like a happy dog. "Wrex thought you got eaten by a thresher maw!"

"I had no idea he was down here with me all this time," Jack replied truthfully. "Though that explains why my food keeps going missing."

"If you can lose a varren here, I hope for the hamster's sake it's not down here," Grunt sighed as he looked hopelessly through all the boxes and clutter.

"You and me both. If he's down here, the next time I see him he'll probably look and smell a little less pleasant..."

* * *

"John saw his first alien when he was six. He was a turian, I think a Spectre maybe, but I forget what his name was. He'd hitched a ride on our ship because we were going the same place he was," Hannah explained. "He saw my husband talking to him and walked up to them and asked the turian what kind of dinosaur he was...I was mortified."

Shepard walked into that room at that moment and wondered why his girlfriend was laughing so hard. This is what he got for sleeping in, he guessed. "What are you two talking about?" he asked.

"Oh, I was just telling Tali some stories about when you were younger," Hannah replied.

Shepard looked horrified. "What kind of stories?" he asked. He looked around for any photo albums to make sure she wasn't also showing Tali any of his baby pictures.

"Apparently you set fifty live geckos free on board a space station when you were four?" Tali asked.

"I had to let them free! They were keeping them in tiny little tanks! They looked so sad!" Shepard pointed out. He looked at his mother, who was laughing, and demanded, "What else have you told her?"

"Well I showed her your blankie," she replied.

"You actually used to sleep with this?" Tali pulled a blue and seafoam green blanket that was shredded and full of holes out from behind her. The edging was peeling off and the blanket was in two pieces hastily stitched back together with string.

Shepard snatched the blanket from her and collected the little piece of yarn that fell off of it. "Yes I used to sleep with that. My grandmother made it for me and it was my favorite thing ever." To Hannah he added, "Okay Mom, you can stop sharing now!"

"Oh, but I haven't gotten to your naked baby pictures yet!" she replied before reaching beside her chair and retrieving the dreaded photo album.

"Oh I can't wait to see those!" Tali replied with a laugh.

Shepard sighed and wandered back out of the room, his shredded blanket leaving a trail of yarn fragments behind him. "Thanks, Mom. This totally isn't embarrassing me at all," he said over his shoulder. He debated whether or not to call Garrus and see how he was doing, but he remembered Tali's words the previous night and decided not to. If there was a problem, he would have called him by now.

* * *

"Sniffles!" Garrus called the hamster. He didn't know why he bothered. Hamsters weren't varren. They didn't come to you when you called their name. He decided to try another tactic. "I have carrots and strawberries! I hear they're your favorite!"

"You might as well promise him expensive Thessian spring water and a solid gold running wheel, Garrus," Zaeed pointed out. "Hamsters are stupid. I don't think he understands a word you're saying."

Garrus sighed, silently agreeing. "You guys have any luck?" he said over the team's comms.

"Current scans are inconclusive. The hamster is too small to detect its current whereabouts on the Normandy," EDI replied.

" _Guess what? We found Urz!"_ Grunt shouted over the comms excitedly. _"Isn't that great? He was living in Jack's quarters all this time!"_

Garrus didn't sound as pleased as Grunt did. "That's...great, Grunt. Now maybe put your detective skills to finding the hamster?"

" _Consensus reached. Object found is bunched up sock, not hamster,"_ Legion replied.

" _Samara and I haven't found anything yet,"_ Kasumi stated. _"We're about to check the food stores. Rodents usually flock to those."_

" _We didn't find Sniffles, but we found this 'Maynard' thing lying in wait at the top of a closet,"_ Thane added.

In the background they could hear Jacob screaming that it was biting him while Mordin shouted, _"Hold still! Scaring him, making it worse!"_

Garrus sat down and faceplanted on the table. "Shepard's going to be home soon and this is all my fault."

"Don't blame yourself, Garrus," Miranda replied reassuringly. "It's only mostly your fault." Garrus picked his head up and glared at her. "Oh. I wasn't supposed to agree, was I?"

"I'm pretty sure he loves that hamster more than he loves me. If we don't find him, I'm screwed!" Garrus' head hit the table again and he heaved a huge sigh. "Guess I should come up with an explanation before Shepard gets back."

* * *

Shepard could tell his mom was sad to see him go. He kind of was sad to be leaving too. In hindsight, three days wasn't nearly long enough to make up for his lack of visits. She quickly stopped him from walking out the door as though he didn't plan on coming back to say goodbye and pulled him into a bonecrushing hug.

"I like this one, John," Hannah said as she pulled away from him. She started fixing his shirt and ignored him rolling his eyes at her action. "If you break up with her, I'll have to ground you."

"Can you really still ground me now that I'm an adult?" Shepard asked skeptically.

"Don't test your mother," she replied sternly. "And I will do it, too."

"Yeah, because breaking up with my girlfriend really ranks up there with the Gecko Incident as a punishable offense," he said sarcastically.

"It does in this case." She grew silent once more and stared at his shirt, almost willing it to mess itself up so she had an excuse to fix it again. "I'll miss you."

"I'm coming back, Mom," Shepard promised. "I don't know when, but I promise I'll be back later."

"And you better bring Tali with you when you do." She gave him another hug. "Because if you don't, I'll be forced to dig up your father's grave so he can come and yell at you for me."

"Okay, Mom. I'll keep that in mind." He checked the time and realized it was almost time to go. "We have to get going. I'll make sure to call you later."

"I'll make sure to keep a shovel ready, just in case." She gave him one last hug and sighed. "Happy birthday, baby."

"I love you, Mom."

Shepard waited patiently for his mother to say goodbye to Tali and checked his omnitool for private messages. Aside from the usual spam and random messages from people wishing him a happy birthday, his inbox was empty. He was glad it wasn't flooded with SOS messages from the Normandy. Perhaps things went a little better than expected.

"I like your mom," Tali said as she rejoined him.

"And you were scared she wouldn't like you," Shepard laughed.

Time to go home. He hoped the Normandy wasn't on fire by the time they got back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one more to go. Gettin' there!


	6. Shepard's Return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last one. Hopefully I don't do things last minute like this next time.

Shepard was due back any minute and the hamster was still nowhere to be found. Garrus worried that something had happened to him. He got eaten by Maynard. He accidentally got fired out the airlock. He fell out of the wrong vent and was incinerated or vaporized. What was he going to tell Shepard when he got back and saw Sniffles missing?

Garrus straightened up Shepard's room, hoping that he would be so distracted with how clean it was that he wouldn't even notice Sniffles missing from his terrarium. Maybe he would think the hamster was just hiding underneath his mountain of cardboard and wood chips. Yeah. And maybe he was a Chinese jet pilot.

He was sitting on the bed, rock in hand, when he heard the elevator's beep announcing Shepard's arrival and took a deep breath.

* * *

Shepard stepped off the elevator when it reached his cabin and felt something hit his foot. He glanced down and saw none other than his hamster, smiling up at him from inside a plastic ball. "Sniffles!" Shepard said happily. "Did you come to greet me?" Screw dogs and cats. Space hamsters had to be the most loyal pet ever. Also the most fragrant. For some reason, Sniffles seemed to smell strongly of tomato sauce and oregano.

Garrus was sitting on the edge of his bed, nervously fiddling with the rock from on top of Sniffles' enclosure when Shepard entered the room. "Hey, Shepard, how are you?" he said nervously.

"You really should keep a better eye on Sniffles," Shepard replied. He held the hamster in his little pink ball up in front of him. "He could escape into the air ducts and be anywhere by now."

Garrus was stunned silent at the rodent's sudden return. He looked around the room as though expecting another to magically appear from somewhere. "Oh, you know him. Always a little explorer," he said with a nervous laugh.

As Shepard twisted the top off the hamster ball (yeah, he definitely smelled like tomato sauce and oregano), he looked around the room for anything that might be out of place. "I see you cleaned Sniffles' terrarium," he pointed out. "Looks good. I've been meaning to do it but never got around to it."

"Yeah, it kind of needed it," Garrus agreed. He crossed the room and placed the rock on top of the lid to hold it in place.

Next Shepard inspected his model ships. There weren't any pieces broken off and hastily glued back on. None of them appeared to have been played with. They seemed to have been dusted recently though. "I see you've also been doing some housekeeping."

"I figured I had nothing else to do at the time. Might as well make it look nice and presentable for when you came back home," Garrus shrugged.

"So is there anything you'd like to confess before I go take a shower?" Shepard asked calmly.

Garrus laughed to cover up his nerves. "Confess? I don't have anything to confess. What makes you think that?"

"Nothing," Shepard shrugged nonchalantly. He turned towards the bathroom and shut the door behind him, but not before adding, "Well, since everything seems in place and you have nothing you want to tell me about, then I guess I won't question why my fish look younger and more dead than I remember them."

Garrus stood silently in the middle of the room and listened to the shower turn on on the other side of the door. Slowly he turned his gaze to the fish tank where every single one of those scaly bastards was once again belly up. In the rush to find Sniffles, he'd completely forgotten to feed them again.

Shepard smiled with mild amusement when he heard Garrus' angry outburst outside, which was loud enough that it was probably audible all the way downstairs where the rest of the crew was.

"MOTHER F-"


End file.
